Notes on effective writing at work, school, and home by Philip Vassallo, Ed.D.

Friday, October 24, 2008

100 Novels

In my view, reading fiction is indispensable to writing improvement. Through sentence analysis of fiction, readers learn firsthand how writers use suspensive techniques to capture the imagination, and how they depart from rigid linguistic rules to maintain reader engagement. Random House/Modern Library has accompanied its Best 100 Nonfiction Books of the Century list, which I noted in the previous post, with a 100 Best Novels of the Century (www.randomhouse.com/modernlibrary/100bestnovels.html).

As the publisher did with the nonfiction list, it added a Top 100 from its readers. A quick glance of each list shows a huge discrepancy: Not one book from the top ten on either list appeared on the other. Four of Ayn Rand’s books are high on the readers’ list (Atlas Shrugged #1, The Fountainhead #2, Anthem #7, and We the Living #8), as do three by L. Ron Hubbard (Battlefield Earth #3, Mission Earth #9, and Fear #10), but none from either author shows up anywhere on the Board’s Top 100. More surprises crop up; oh, well, you’ll now have more than a hundred books to read.

Another list, 100 Best Novels (http://www.best100novels.com/) claims to be “voted by regular people.” Orwell’s 1984, J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, and Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice populate the top 5.

All the lists constitute a great way to create a lifelong reading regimen.

PHIL VASSALLO

Philip Vassallo is a communication and education consultant. Phil is the author of three instructional books (HOW TO WRITE FAST UNDER PRESSURE, THE ART OF ON-THE-JOB WRITING, and THE ART OF E-MAIL WRITING), two play collections (QUESTIONS ASKED OF DYING DREAMS and A CASE-BY-CASE BASIS: FOUR SHORT PLAYS), two essay collections (PERSON TO PERSON: ESSAYS FROM TWO CENTURIES and THE INWARDNESS OF THE OUTWARD GAZE: LEARNING AND TEACHING THROUGH PHILOSOPHY), and two poetry collections (LIKE THE DAY I WAS BORN: 40 POEMS, 40 PLACES, 40 DAYS and AMERICAN HAIKU). Twenty-one of his plays are licensed through Samuel French, Heuer Publishing, and Brooklyn Publishing. He holds a doctorate in Educational Theory and Philosophy from Rutgers University and received a New Jersey State Council on the Arts grant for playwriting. Phil can be reached at Phil@PhilVassallo.com.